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Wooden Treasures

Wooden Treasures

The Story of Bucks County's Covered Bridges

ByR. Scott Bomboy

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“Wooden Treasures: The Story of Bucks County’s Covered Bridges” is a project five years in the making and accounts for the 51 covered bridges once located in the county. Today, only 12 such bridges remain in Bucks County, and they have a special place regionally as “cultural treasures.” That heritage goes back to Theodore Burr’s landmark 1806 covered bridge at Morrisville to the 39 local covered bridges that connected Bucks County towns by 1875. Also in 1980, Bucks County’s original covered bridges were placed on the National Register of Historic Places by the National Park Service. “Wooden Treasures” documents each of the 51 covered bridges and includes more than 240 photos and illustrations—many of which are published for the first time. The project’s origins go back to June 2018, when the author worked with the Mercer Museum in Doylestown, Pa., to build a website, bucksbridges.com, that was the first effort to research all 51 bridges. Since then, the project grew in scope, with content contributed by the Theodore Burr Covered Bridge Society of Pennsylvania, Bucknell University, Temple University, Princeton University, the Trenton Free Public Library, and private collectors of covered bridge photographs. While many people think New England was the cradle of America’s covered bridges, the first two “wooden treasures” in the United States were built in Pennsylvania by Timothy Palmer (1805 in Philadelphia) and Theodore Burr (in 1806, connecting Bucks County’s Morrisville with Trenton). Bucks County’s commissioners paid for more than three dozen local covered bridges until 1875. But after 1920, the old structures fell out of favor with government officials. The South Perkasie covered bridge’s preservation in 1958 led to a policy change toward local covered bridges and the growth of covered bridge tourism in Bucks County, which is still going strong today. Among the county’s surviving original covered bridges are Cabin Run, Erwinna, Frankenfield’s, Knecht’s, Loux’s, Pine Valley, Sheard’s Mill, South Perkasie, Uhlerstown, and Van Sant’s. Two replica bridges, Mood’s and Schofield Ford, have replaced bridges lost to fires.

Details

Publication Date
Mar 20, 2022
Language
English
Category
History
Copyright
All Rights Reserved - Standard Copyright License
Contributors
By (author): R. Scott Bomboy

Specifications

Pages
220
Binding Type
Paperback Perfect Bound
Interior Color
Color
Dimensions
Executive (7 x 10 in / 178 x 254 mm)

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